BibleProject - Why Do the Beatitudes Matter for the Overworked and Hopeless? – Sermon on the Mount Q+R 1

Episode Date: March 11, 2024

Why do we not find the Sermon on the Mount in the gospels of Mark or John? Why is “blessed” not a good translation of the word makarios? And if Jesus says that mourning, powerlessness, and poverty are the key to the good life, should we pursue those things? In this episode, Tim and Jon respond to your questions from the first seven episodes of the Sermon on the Mount series. Thank you to our audience for your incredible questions!View more resources on our website →Timestamps Why do we not find the Sermon on the Mount in the gospels of Mark or John? (1:05)Why is “blessed" not a good translation of makarios? (9:43)Why does Matthew 5:3 matter to people who feel overworked, crushed, oppressed, domesticated, complacent, powerless, and hopeless? (19:25)Should we pursue mourning, powerlessness, and poverty if that is the good life? (27:34)Is there something I should be doing to attain the blessings in the Beatitudes? (27:58)How can we “bless the Lord?” (37:27)Isn’t there more to righteousness than right relationships with others? (46:18)Is the meekness Jesus describes the same as Moses’ meekness in Numbers 12:3? (52:24)Are there techniques early Christians used that could help us today to remember and reflect on the sermon? (60:17)Referenced ResourcesInterested in more? Check out Tim’s library here.You can experience our entire library of resources in the BibleProject app, available for Android and iOS.Show Music Original Sermon on the Mount music by Richie KohenBibleProject theme song by TENTSShow CreditsJon Collins is the creative producer for today’s show, and Tim Mackie is the lead scholar. Production of today’s episode is by Lindsey Ponder, producer; Cooper Peltz, managing producer; and Colin Wilson, producer. Tyler Bailey is our audio engineer and editor, and he provided the sound design and mix. JB Witty does our show notes, and Hannah Woo provides the annotations for our app. Today’s host is Jon Collins.Powered and distributed by Simplecast.

Hey, this is John at Bible Project. I want to let you know that we just released the third episode in our Sermon on the Mount Animated series. This episode explores Jesus' vision for doing right by each other and how it's deeply connected to the story and the instructions in the Hebrew Bible. That is the Torah and prophets. You can find episode three now on YouTube. Check it out, and thanks for being a part of this with us.

Hey, Tim. Hey, John. Hello. Hi. We're doing a question and response episode Related to the first section of the sermon on the mount. Yes. Yeah, that's right Actually, I think these questions are mostly in relation to the beatitudes Yep, the nine good life sayings that Jesus says at the beginning of the sermon We haven't in real time gotten to the salt and light episodes So we won't be ah, right we won't be... Ah, right. There won't be any questions about that. That was the time of recording this.

That was the time of recording this. That's right. Yeah. So just focused on the good life statements. And we should just jump right in. I think that we should just jump right in. Let's go for it. You guys sent in so many good questions.

So let's start with a short and sweet question from Blaine in Alberta, Canada. Hello there. My name is Blaine from Fort McRoy in Alberta, Canada. And my question is this, if the sermon on the Mount is some of Jesus' most important teachings, then why do we not find them in the gospels of Mark or John?

Thank you. That is a fantastic question. Yeah. Yeah. If these are the most important teachings, then should they be in every gospel? Yeah. So, what has really interesting, there are very few sayings of Jesus that are in all four gospels.

There are many sayings of Jesus that are in three four gospels. There are many sayings of Jesus that are in three out of four. That's pretty good. What's an example of one that's in all four? Put you on the spot here. Jesus is saying about destroy the temple and I will raise it again in three days. Jesus is accused of saying that in his trial in Matthew, Mark, and Luke, and then he actually ...

There's a scene of him saying it in John. Yeah, in John chapter 2. So it's an intuitive question to say, well, if there's four accounts and if they all come from that earliest circle or that first generation, isn't it probable that the most important sayings would get repeated in all four? Yeah. Like that's intuitive for why you would think that. However, there's a number of reasons to think that that's not significant.

In other words, just that the number itself doesn't tell you about whether the sayings were the most influential or not. So an interesting thing about the origins of the Gospels, and for a long time it was thought that Matthew was the first of the four to be written. And that's because in the earliest collections of the four together as one collection, Matthew was consistently in the first spot. And so it was often assumed that that literary order matched the historical order. And there still are a small number of New Testament scholars who are convinced that that's true.

The majority of New Testament scholars who work on the relationships between the gospels, and I think for good reason, believe that Mark was the earliest. It's the shortest. And there are lots of places where when Mark has a long account, Luke and Matthew, who have the identical story, have shorter accounts. And you can go through and see things that have been... you either have to say Mark made it longer or Matthew and Luke abbreviated it. And over the course of the comparisons, I think it's more reasonable to include that

Matthew and Luke abbreviated. And then there's debate about did Matthew, Matthew is based on Mark and then he had a whole bunch of extra material, sayings of Jesus mostly. And that's what the Sermon on the Mount consists of. There's a few sayings that are in the sermon that are also in Mark, like cutting off the hand in the eye. But for the most part, it's material, not in Mark. Luke has a version of the material that's in the Sermon on the Mount, but he locates

it in a different story and in a different spot, actually on the opposite of a mountain. Yeah. He's on a plane. He's in a valley. Sermon on the plane. And that feels like the Sermon on the Mount remix. Yeah.

And so there's debates about did Matthew and Luke each have independent access to a collection of teachings like the sermon and then they each shaped it, you know, in a different way. It's possible that Luke was actually just looking at Mark and Matthew, and that he didn't have it. Anyway, this is the stuff New Testament scholars love to get into. But what it means is that each of the four gospels actually came from a unique time and place in the first, of the Jesus movement and that the material they included was the material that that network of churches where the authors had access to. And so importance isn't necessarily determined by whether it's repeated in all four. So that's just one thing.

And then the other thing would be just each of the gospel authors also had an abundance of material to work with. John at the end of the gospel says, listen, if I told you, if everything was written that Jesus said or did, there wouldn't be enough books. He's being a little rhetorical there. But then he says, he tells us what his editorial principle was. He says, these things I have included so that you may have life, may trust that Jesus is the Messiah, the Son of God, and that by trusting in him you have life in his name. So he tells us he had an editorial principle and a strategy that helped him know what to

include and exclude. So if each of the gospel authors was doing that, what that tells us is that Jesus said and did a lot of things. So the fact that mostly the reason why we're saying that the Sermon on the Mount is one of Jesus' most important collections of teachings is because Matthew and Luke both have a version of this body of teaching and that Matthew has chosen to place it as the first big speech block. So the importance for me is signaled primarily by Matthew and Luke both including it.

Seems like Mark likely didn't have access to it. Oh, you think that's the case? Mm-hmm. Okay. And that Matthew has chosen to place it first, which tells me that at least one of those early gospel authors really wants followers of Jesus to pay attention to this. And also because it's programmatic, like it lays out Jesus comes onto the scene announcing the arrival of God's kingdom. What does that mean?

And then this is the block of teaching that he gives to us. So that's mainly the reason why we're saying that. And it's not like a scientific, conclusive argument. This is the most important or one of the most important. It's really just, I think you saying, this is really important. Oh, it's also a judgment call by a guy named Tim Madden who lives in Portland in the 21st century. Yeah. So, yeah, that is also true. But you did answer why do some gospels include some things and not others.

They had access to different material. They also had different editorial purposes. That's right. Mark has a lot less of Jesus talking and a lot more of Jesus just acting and doing. And then saying short little puzzling sayings. Jesus talks more in Matthew and in Luke and John than he does in Mark. So Mark's more of a narrative set of claims about Jesus, whereas in the other Gospels Jesus talks more. And then in Matthew, all of Jesus' talking has been structured into the five big speech

blocks and the Sermon on the Mount. This is the first one. So it was definitely prioritized by one of the Gospel authors. And the apostle Paul and then also James, they quote it a lot. Thank you. Actually, yes. Of all the sayings of Jesus that are repeated, re-quoted, rephrased by the apostles in the rest of the New Testament, the Sermon on the Mount seems to have made the biggest impact

on the thought of the apostles. That's a good point, actually. That's another good point. Actually, that's another good point. So it seemed to have been prioritized in their own teaching as the Jesus movement spread. You've called it the manifesto before. Yeah. And you can also look at the history of reception, the history of the impact of the sermon throughout the Jesus movement. And it's the first block of teaching by Jesus when you read the New Testament. And when people talk about Jesus changing their life and challenging how they live,

they usually are talking about the sayings that like in the opening episode of this podcast series with all the stories that we told with Stephanie and Michelle and Dan. Those were all influential cultural leaders of the 20th century who were changed by the Sermon on the Mount. And that has been repeating itself in every century, you know, going back to it. So, cool. Yep. There you go, Blaine. Those are some thoughts, but thank you for that thoughtful question.

Thanks, Blaine. It's a good question. Next question is Trey in Hawaii. Hi, Tim and John. My name is Trey Brickley and I am blessed to live in Honolulu, Hawaii. Or am I? Well, that's my question. In your discussion about Makarios, you said that blessed isn't a good translation and

that you prefer to translate it as having reference to the good life. However, you also said that the good life is actually defined by God's blessing. So I'm not very clear on why exactly you don't think blessed is a good translation. Thanks for all you do, and well, God bless. That's amazing. Trey, that was, that was, that was punny, man. That was really punny.

You are blessed to live in Hawaii, Trey. Yeah, honolulu. The good life. Okay. Well, let's get into it. Okay. So thank you for raising it, Trey. If the episode we dedicated to the conversation didn't make it clear, then this is a great chance to make it clear again. First, we'll talk about the difference between the words for bless and then the word that Jesus uses. Let's talk about that again, summarize that. And then whether bless is or is not a good translation,

I guess I'll set that in front of you, Trey, and everybody else. So the key difference is that there are two different words in Hebrew and in Greek to distinguish between blessing and the good life. The Hebrew word to bless is baruch, and then to be in a state of being blessed is baruch. And what that means is that this person

has received the gift of God's life generating goodness in their life, they're experiencing abundant stability, security, and harmony in their life. So what characterizes God's life is over abundance and the stability of God's eternal being. And God shares a little bit of that with a creature that makes their life like an image or a symbol of God's life. And that's what you use these words, blessed, to talk about. When you bless someone, what you're doing is you are calling with your words, calling down upon them or wishing upon them that state of stability, abundance, harmony and goodness.

So when Shrey ended by saying, God bless you. Yeah. You were invoking God's infinite abundant life upon John and I. Thank you, Shrey. So thanks, man. Appreciate that. More of that. But you're saying that's not the word Jesus uses in the center of the mountain.

That's right. So both in the Hebrew Bible and then right here, Jesus uses a word, Makarios, which reflects the Hebrew word, asheh. And it's what happens when you and I are sitting here and we're looking out the window down at the sidewalk right now. Yeah. It's gray in Portland and we're thinking this is the good life would be some sun on a Hawaiian island. Yeah. okay, that's right. So Trey, we look west and south in your direction. And I say, oh man, the good life.

Australia's Trey. The good life is Australia's Trey. Also, punny. The good life is for the guy sitting in Honolulu right now. Now, that is relative to my perspective on the good life. But it is connected to God's blessing, but me saying it has nothing to do with Trey experiencing God's goodness in his life. It's about my perception of what is the good life.

And I think we made that clear in the episode when I think people are getting hung up on and maybe Trey here is, what's, why does this matter? Oh, right. Like if, and I think Trey puts it well, if, okay, so Jesus says, Oshrei are you when you're poor in spirit, but then he gives the blessing, right, in the second line. Right. Because yours is the kingdom

of the skies. So to have the kingdom of the skies is to have God's abundant, generous life. And so what Trey is saying is, well, if the reason why you're Ashreya is because you're going to receive God's blessing, then is this even a distinction that matters? Yeah. Okay. Here's why I think it matters. The ashray or the Makarios, the good life statement is culturally relative. And that's what we, in the examples in the episode, we read from some good life statements from Proverbs, from the Psalms, then from the Dead Sea Scrolls, then from that guy, Yeshua Ben-Sira, who was like, you know, the good life is never having to serve an inferior and always having victory over your enemies and having them be ashamed

and you be honored. Yeah. He didn't know about the Hawaiian Islands. That's right. Was that where everybody wins? Yeah. Yeah. Because everybody's in such a good mood. So the point is that the good life is culturally relative and it's based on human perception.

And in these sayings, in these nine sayings, the blessing, the state of the good stuff that comes from God is not in the first line. It's in the second line. Blessed are the powerless with the poor in spirit because theirs is the kingdom of God. There's the blessing. Yeah. And what that blessing means is if you have the kingdom of God, then what that means is a state of existence that no one would look at and say, that's the good life, like being powerless.

All of a sudden it changes that to actually be the good life. And so Jesus is trying to shatter our preconceptions about what is the good life. Yeah. Because the blessing of God's presence and kingdom and rule has come to the powerless, which means that the powerless are now experiencing the good lives.

There's a deep connection between the good life and blessing, but I think we miss the culture shattering move that Jesus is making when we blend the two together. Does that make sense? Yes. So, I think one thing people do with these is go, okay, well, then I need to be poor in spirit. And that's the wrong way to think about this. That's not what Jesus is saying. Jesus isn't saying... Especially at least in those first three. Yeah, go and be poor in spirit, because yours

will be the kingdom of heaven. He's saying, do you want to know who's experiencing a good life? And it's a big surprise. Yep. You know, we were talking about this later after doing the podcast recording months later and we started coming up with synonyms for how we say this culturally today. And for example, you know who's winning in life? Oh yeah, that's right. You know who's killing it? Yeah, sure. And we have a cultural idea of what that is when you're on whatever social media thing

and you see someone winning, killing it, just doing their thing and just like live in large and you're like, wow, they're- It's a good life. That's the good life. And so that's a sure. That's right. And we wouldn't say, we wouldn't look at someone who's depressed or on the margins or someone who is hungry for right relationships because they're not experiencing it.

We wouldn't say, ah, that's the good life. So that's the big, ironic twist here. That's right. Yeah. When you see the difference between the good life as culturally and personally relative and subjective and then the state of being blessed by God's life and rule and presence, then that opens the space for you to say, hmm, why do I think, why do I have the ideas that I have about the good life?

And maybe my perceptions are completely upside down of Jesus. And so, Jesus is redefining who are the blessed ones by God and that redefines also what is the good life, which kind of gets into the next couple of questions about the first three in particular. But that's the difference between the two that I think is Yeah, I think is helpful because it's not just about how do we translate it? It's about what does Jesus mean right by the different words that he uses Jesus didn't mean Hey, do you want to find God's blessing be porn spirit? That's not what he meant. Yeah, he was he met

This really rhetorical punch of, you know, who's winning in life? The pouring spirit. What? Because the grieving. God's blessing is theirs. Yeah, the unimportant, that's right. And maybe, so as a lead into the next questions, why would he say a thing like that? And remember, these are the words in Matthew 5 that come directly after we were just told Jesus went around announcing the good news about God's kingdom, saying the kingdom of God has come near. And there were surrounding him the sick, the poor, those with illness, those influenced by evil spirits. So he's actually talking to people who are poor in spirit that is powerless, the unimportant, right?

Those grieving. And he's saying the kingdom of God is yours in this moment. And that's the surprise that the first lines have. So I think that helps us move towards a number of questions now. The first one about that is Colin in Colorado. the very close friend of mine who told me that he's feeling overworked, crushed, oppressed, domesticated, complacent, powerless, and hopeless by the powers in the current system of the world. That it's impossible to experience the good life.

Why does this verse and the Sermon on the Mount as a whole matter to people who feel and think this way? Thank you Bible Project for all the amazing content. What you guys do means more to me than words can explain. Wow, that's Colin. Yeah, thank you. Great question. Yes, and thank you for that honest, really important honest question on behalf of your

friend. I don't know if you meant this, Colin, but you chose seven adjectives. You're counting that. Overworked, crushed, oppressed, domesticated, complacent, powerless, and hopeless. magic tips. You're counting magic tips. Overworked, crushed, oppressed, domesticated, complacent, powerless, and hopeless. Yeah. Whenever there's a list of things I've been trained by the big flotters to count them. It's a powerful list.

Yes. Very powerful. It paints a picture of how I think I'll power a lot of people feel, especially when, as you put it, there's bigger systems at play that you feel sometimes powerless to. Yeah, that it's impossible to experience the good life. So I think what I call and I wanted to name and share your question is I think your question is raising the very paradox

and surprise of what, the shock of what Jesus was saying. In other words, I think your friend is actually experiencing the shock that Jesus intended people to feel in here when he uttered these good life sayings. This should be a reaction. This is the natural intended reaction that Jesus wanted people to have. People whose lives are terrible. And what do you mean that I'm the recipient of the good life? And what I don't think, what Jesus is not saying is your current conditions

of being powerless and grieving. He's not saying, That's good. That's good. What he's saying is something is happening in this moment. We have to first locate ourselves in the actual story where Jesus is saying these things and to whom he's saying them, is to people who are experiencing life like your friend, Colin. And so, what makes their situation, all of a sudden, the good life, is because Jesus was standing right there, offering them and inviting them into communities

where they would begin to experience the reality of God's kingdom, that will transform their life experience. It most likely will not change their circumstances. Like these people will, right, the people Jesus spoke to and taught, sometimes their encounter with him healed their bodies for a time, but they eventually got sick again and died and all those people are dead. It's not like, you know. So any healing that even Jesus did for people was, in a sense, kind of a relative to their mortality. And so really, I think it's forcing us to reimagine if I could be a part of a community of people centered around Jesus who are learning to share generously and who are learning to forgive and to love.

No matter what social rank we come from, we all sit at the same table and gather when we gather in the name of Jesus and are treated with dignity. Those are the kind of communities Jesus formed and was forming, right, by the ethic of the Sermon on the Mount. And if you were part of a community like that, Jesus saying that's beginning to participate and experience heaven coming to earth. And in that sense, experience heaven coming to earth. And in that sense, your life circumstances, no matter what you're in, can be said to be called the good life. That's what Jesus is going for.

So Jesus is naming the thing that's happening in the moment that he says the words and forms these communities. And so, Colin, you said it feels impossible to experience the good life when your overwork crushed, oppressed, domesticated, complacent, powerless, and hopeless. And in one sense, that's true. But in another sense, what if it's not impossible? But what if it's not something you can do by yourself, it's something you can experience in a community of people who are learning to live by the ethic of a different kingdom.

I think that's what it would take to convince a friend like that that the good life actually can be experienced even when you're feeling all those things. Yeah. And it is a radical claim for Jesus to say, the systems of the world or systems that are entwined with spiritual powers that are destructive, they're not in the end more powerful than what Jesus wants to do. They may define all these aspects of my life, but they don't define my identity and my truest self is defined by the love of God and the kingdom of God.

And I'm a citizen of that kingdom. And that means that I am experienced the gift of God's blessing and can be said to have the good life. And it might not feel like it. But that's exactly the shock that Jesus is going for. I think that's what's helping me a little bit is realizing the point here isn't to have a great answer. The point is the shock. The point is the wrestling with, the wrestling with, can I believe this? And in my circumstance, is this all there really has to be? And in that, moving towards Jesus, like that's what he's trying to do here. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, think, this is maybe one way that this appeals to an experience we know.

If you've ever been the recipient of generosity from someone who doesn't have very much, that's a very powerful experience. When someone who doesn't have very much shares sacrificially with you, especially if you know like you could share in the same way and you, it wouldn't be as much of a sacrifice. But when you receive that, the relational bond, the love that's created, all of a sudden you would say of that person like, wow, however they live in the world, they think they are experiencing the good life so much that they can just share.

They think they are experiencing the good life so much that they can just share. I want that. Like I want that. So all of a sudden the good life becomes relative to what story you believe about the world. And GS is inviting us into another way of imagining who we are and where we are and when we are. And apparently that defines the good life a lot more than my actual circumstances from another point of view. I think that's what Jesus is going for. It raises another couple of questions that came in. And what I'd like to do is play the next two questions together. So there's one question from Talia in Tennessee and another from Sophia in Virginia. And you both asked a similar question from two angles that I wanted to share them together

and then we can talk about them together. Hi, my name is Talia and I'm from Chattanooga, Tennessee. It's easy to interpret the Beatitude as instructions for how to get the good life. Should we therefore pursue mourning, powerlessness, and poverty? If Jesus says the poor and powerless have the good life, why shouldn't we desire to be those people? How are people with health, wealth, and power

called to practically respond to this teaching from Jesus? Thanks. Hi, this is Sophia Cruz from Virginia Beach, Virginia. My question is related to the triad of blessed are the poor in spirit, those who mourn and the meek. I can't help but think there's something I should be doing to attain these states of being, like I should be trying to be in a state of mourning

to receive blessing. Is there supposed to be action on our end when reading this, or is that not the point? Further, is this what led groups in the past to make vows of poverty in church history? Thank you for all that you do. So thank you, Talia and Sophia. Yeah, so let's first name Jesus. Doesn't make these directives in terms of like, be this way. Right, the be attitudes. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

As you said. Yeah. However, again, this is a part, going back to the first question about what's the difference between the words, the good life, and then the blessing. You hold up as desirable and honorable the things that you think are the good life partially because they're aspirational, like there's things that you desire to have and to be. So, that is a part when you hold somebody up as a model of the good life is to say, yeah, you should aim in that direction.

So, in one sense, it's true. Right. But it doesn't seem like that's the rhetorical point that Jesus is trying to make. And right? Right. It's the shock and surprise. That's the point. It's the point. However, your question specifically, Talia, is that how are people who have a more worldly, as it were, definition of the good life, health, wealth, and influence, how should we respond? Yeah.

If you're a tax collector or Roman soldier listening to the Sermon on the Mount and you see he's talking to the outcasts and the powerless, but you're like, okay, but what about me? Yes, that's right. So just think through the stories of the rich, young leader who comes to Jesus. And he's very, he's observant of the laws in the Torah from his youth, he says, and Jesus believes him. And he's like, yeah, yeah, you probably have been.

So how about this? Give away all your stuff. Or Zacchaeus, the tax collector, the impact Jesus had on him just being in his presence made him realize he needed to pay back all the people that he had cheated and extorted from and over and above to give so much away. So a faithful response to Jesus throughout church history, a way to respond to these has consistently been to totally change the way I relate to my possessions. And I think that is a faithful response to these sayings, but it's not following a command. saying, the more I can put myself in a place of need on God and on my community, I will probably begin to experience life in a way of where I see God's blessing as even more

of a generous gift than I would otherwise. So what can I do? So yeah, there you go. Can I ask you this way then? Let me make both arguments. Argument one is this is not a directive. Don't try to go and be... That's right. The beatitudes are not the same as what he said to the young ruler, which is go, sell all you have, get to the poor.

Right. So, blessed are the powerless. The directive isn't go and try to become powerless. Okay, that's argument one. Argument two though, on the other hand, the opposite argument is, well actually, Jesus does ask us to pray, give us our daily bread. We'll get to that later in the Sermon of the Mount. And there's this posture of putting ourselves

in dependence with God. So there's actually something good about recognizing I actually am more powerless than I realize. And by putting myself in a position where I don't actually receive as much power, have as much influence, maybe I am able to receive God's blessing in a better way. So then in that case, I guess I can think of it as a directive. So which is it? Yeah, yes. Yes. I mean, Sophia, you brought up what has led groups to make vows of poverty throughout church history. And it's this. It's teachings of Jesus. However, I mean, you know

this, maybe think like high school, if you have the, I remember, I was one of the friends, my dad's a car guy. He like loves cars. He was so excited to help me save up for, and he was generous with me to have my first car, which was a 1976 VW Volkswagen, like van. It was awesome. Oh van. It was awesome. It was awesome. That's awesome.

Yeah. And what that meant was I was the first one among my friends to drive, and I could haul like six or seven of my friends around in that thing. You know, I grew up, I think it was in a 78 van again. Yeah, like a pop top. Oh, pop top. That was the family car.

Oh, man. Yeah. Yeah, those are awesome. Yeah, this was an old-school one Yeah, so what consistently happened was none of my friends ever had any money though and So not only did I haul my friends around but I paid for all the gasoline And I think chugged a lot of gas. So the fact that my friends were impoverished of gas money,

meant it was kind of lame actually, because there was nobody except me to sponsor all of our adventures. It's a silly way of saying, if everybody's impoverished, then you actually have less to share, right? It's a silly way of saying, if everybody's impoverished, then you actually have less to share, right? Yeah. So...

You're saying like, if you would have said, you know what, I'm gonna get rid of my van because, you know, I'll experience a good life if I don't have this van. Yeah, that's right. Well, then actually then you can't be the community, yeah, like, van guy. Yeah, that's right.

So for me, what that meant, and this wasn't noble, I grumbled about it all the time, was I was just like, well, either I hang out with my friends or I don't. And we go skateboarding around the city and I take everybody around. So I guess I'll just use my tip money that I get from the old spaghetti factory. That was my job. But the point was, I think there's in a community of Jesus followers, ideally, there's people of all different social and economic ranks and positions and situations. And there will be some people who have more.

And those are the people I think Jesus wants to challenge in a way to say, what if you lived like you have less? But the reason you have less is because you're giving away the more that you have. And Jesus also wants to challenge the people who have less to say, but what if my economic circumstances don't have to define my happiness and my joy because my identity and hope is not bound up in those things?

So Jesus challenges everybody. But like you were saying, it challenges everybody to think, what can I do to live more simply, to live more generously? And for some people, that will mean giving away a lot more. And for others it will mean maybe a more of a change of mindset because they don't have a lot to give away. Yeah. But these are the teachings to hold up neediness,

having to trust God. This is what's behind the practices of fasting too. Like why would you intentionally withhold food from your body on a rhythmic basis? Except as a symbol to say I know I have food in the fridge, but I'm gonna live Like I don't One day a week. I'm gonna experience hunger to experience hunger because being hungry puts me in a state To experience hunger because being hungry puts me in a state where I can receive the blessing of

God's kingdom in a way I probably wouldn't experience it if my stomach's always full. Okay. So it's wisdom. Yeah, it's gonna require wisdom. That's landing to know when you should take a vow of poverty when you should fast, when you should choose obscurity rather than notoriety. Right. Like same with generosity. How do you know when to give generously in a way that no one will ever know or see?

And then when is it good to be generous in a way that you can tell a story and set an example in your community. Inspire others. And inspire others. And Jesus encouraged both forms of generosity. So how do you know? And I think we're to the wisdom literature kind of pillar of how we talk about scripture. Okay.

All right. That was great. Yeah. One last question about blessing and the word bless that comes from Judy in North Carolina. Hi there. My name is Judy and I'm from North Carolina. I have a question about the word bless. In Psalm 103 verse 1, it says, bless the Lord, O my soul, and all that is within me, bless his holy name. And I have wondered about that for a while. If God is the God of blessing and God is the one who blesses, how can we as people bless the Lord?

What does it mean in this context? Thanks. That's such a great question. It's a fantastic question. I actually had a friend ask me this question like 24 hours ago. Oh, yeah. Yeah. Yeah, because they've been listening to the podcast.

Yeah. It's a great question. So if what it means to be blessed is that God has shared a small fraction of his infinite abundant life with you so that your life now has the stability, abundance, harmony that characterizes God's life. So that's not something I can create in you or for you. So what I'm doing when I bless you is I'm saying, may God bless you is really what I mean. Which is what Trey said to us, God bless you.

So what does it mean then in a whole bunch of Psalms, in the book of Psalms that open up like Psalm 103 where it's a human blessing God? Like what does a human have? And to be clear, this is the same word? It's Baruch. Baruch. Baruch. Baruch is the passive to be blessed and Baruch is to bless. To bless or to speak a word of blessing. Okay. So how could a human ever bless God? Yeah.

If God is the source. How could you give God any more abundance? Yeah. So in a way, so here's what's interesting is that many of our English translations, when it's a story or a moment that's talking about God blessing a human, it will use the translate Baraik with the word bless. But when it's about a human Baraiking God, many English translations don't use blessed. They use the word praise.

Yes. So, here's the NIV, New International Version of Psalm 103 that you quoted Judy begins, praise the Lord, O my soul. E, English Standard Version, bless the Lord, oh my soul. So what the New International version is doing is saying, even though it's the same word technically, it's a different nuance of meaning because when God speaks a blessing over a human, it's gonna happen. When a human blesses God, really all the… What is really happening? What is, yeah, what we're doing is we're naming with our words the things that God

has given to me, I reflect back and I name that as being true about God. So if life and goodness and security, stability, abundance. If those are the things God's shared with me, then for me to barricade God is essentially to just speak what is true about God. God, you are the blessed one. Yeah. But it's sort of like any category I have of blessing that I would bless God, I'm just naming God as the source of any good thing that I've ever experienced. You are. And because blessings are things that happen with words. So when God speaks a word, he bl- and that person is blessed. And then here are humans speaking

holiness, goodness, abundance to God, not because we can give it to God, but because… Because we just want to claim it is true about God. Yeah. It's an alignment of sorts of saying like, we understand what's true about you, God, and we want to align ourselves with that. Yeah.

Yep. Here's a line from a very helpful dictionary, a theological dictionary of biblical words that I've used a ton for the Hebrew Bible is called the New International Dictionary of Old Testament Theology and Exegesis. N-I-D-O-T-T-E, edited by William Van Gameren, but created by dozens of scholars. So in their entry on the word blessing, they have a whole paragraph that addresses this very question. I'll also quote from it here. God blesses human beings by speaking well of them, thereby imparting blessing, that

is, good things to them. So they are blessed. Human beings bless God by speaking well of God, attributing the blessing and the good things to him. And so God is blessed, That is praised or praised worthy. Or you could say God blesses people by conferring good upon them. People bless God by praising the good in God. So I find that to be a helpful definition. But it's a good question. It's sort of like you hear the phrase, bless the Lord

on my soul. And you're like, oh, I think what probably in our minds we just say phrase. Yeah, I think, you know, language is such a flexible thing. We begin to intuit what we mean with language pretty naturally. So I agree. I think people translate it on the fly in their own mind. I know what that means, to bless the Lord. It doesn't mean I'm going to give God something. But in a way, God is asking me to give him something. And what I could give him is my heart posture through the words that I confess.

So kind of intuitively makes sense, but then once you really start digging at it and think about what the word bless really means, it does seem confusing. Like, how are we using that word? And so then it makes sense why NIV would say, well, here's another word that will maybe help the confusion. That's right. Yep. When God speaks good on someone, it happens.

When humans speak good of God, we're not causing anything to happen to God. Yeah, right. But what we are doing is naming God as the source of all good. And so, good on ya. Good on ya, God. Isn't that what a, that's an Australian term of phrase, isn't it, good on ya?

Sounds like it. Anyhow. Just reminded me that I learned goodbye isn't actually, like I'm saying bye and I want it to be good. It comes from God be with you. Oh, really? Yeah, originally. Goodbye is just a...

It's a truncated... Truncated... God be with you. God be with you. God be with you. God be with you. God be with you. God be with you. I mean, over centuries and centuries. Goodbye.

Goodbye. Yeah, you can look at it. Actually, Shakespeare has a bunch of versions of it that are. I get it. But so when you said, good on ya, I wonder if that has like a God be with you, God. Oh, I was thinking of the truncated form of good be upon you.

Good be upon you. May good be upon you. Yeah, okay. Yeah, okay. Yeah, yeah. Cool. But it sounds like a funny thing to say to God. Yes. Like, good on you God.

We're gonna go God. God is deficient of goodness and needs me to keep a little more on him. Isn't all worship and praise kind of have inherently that dilemma? Yes, it does. Right? Thank you, that's exactly right.

Yeah. What are we doing? Yeah, when we say, That dilemma. It does. Right? Thank you. That's exactly right. Yeah. What are we doing? Yeah. When we say, oh, the Lord's prayer, may your name hallowed be your name. Is God's name not holy? Yeah, unless we say it.

Yeah. Right. So again, that's why in our conversations that are to come, we translate that may your name be recognized as holy. It's about may more people come to recognize what is true about you whether we think it or believe it or say it or not. God's holy. But when we say holy, you're you, oh God, we, it's more like we're coming to terms with reality. And in a way that's what all praise is, isn't it? Coming to terms with reality. Yeah. That's a great way to put it.

Okay. How about a question about righteousness? Remember... Yeah, let's get out of porn spirit. Yeah. The good life belongs to those who hunger and thirst for righteousness. Patrick, you had a great question about righteousness. Hello.

This is Patrick from Atlanta, Georgia. I have a question about righteousness. Hello, this is Patrick from Atlanta, Georgia. I have a question about righteousness. At one point in previous talks, you said that righteousness is being in right relationship with God and others. However, in these talks, that definition seems to be simply your right relationship with others,

making a better world to quote unquote, good life. I had understood it was a three-way righteousness that makes a better world and allows you to experience that it's so good part of the kingdom right now. Can you help me see the difference? Thanks. So do you know what he's referring to, the three-way rightness? Oh, I think what he's probably referring to, Patrick, you can correct me if I'm wrong, is right relationships with God, with people, and with creation.

Oh, three, okay. Like kind of the triangular setup of the Eden story. Makes sense. Yep. Yeah. So yes, yes to that. Yeah. Yes to that.

That's exactly right. It's humans relating rightly in the different contextual ways of what that means with other human beings and then with the creator and then with the lived environment and the creatures within it. So that is like the robust, full-orbed, Hebrew Bible meaning of righteousness. It sounds like when we start talking about those who hung on to this righteousness, we just really laser-focused on great relationships with others. Yeah, and because that is primarily the focus of Jesus in the sermon. He does also in chapter 6,

we'll get into this much later in the series, Jesus uses the word righteousness to describe activities that you do that cultivate or foster a closer connection with God. He names prayer and fasting and he calls those doing righteousness. But even with those, those are also corporate things done for the sake of community as well. They can be done in a way that other people see them and Jesus also wants us to consider doing them in ways that no one will ever know. Yeah. So really focusing on your relationships, God. So doing right by God is something that prayer and fasting and generosity can – actually, generosity is the perfect one because in the Hebrew Bible, in Proverbs 15, this is amazing little prophep that Jesus built a lot on.

The one who lends to the poor lends to God. Yeah. This is like a little riddle. Like what? How can you lend the God? By lending to the poor. And we're back to the blessing. Like God's the one who provided everything to begin with.

But in lending to the poor, you are lending to an image of God and therefore you are lending to God. So G.S.'s teachings on righteousness, I think assume that close bond, the way I relate to other humans, is interwoven in the closest possible way to how I relate to God. You've brought up before, I love that you talk about when Jesus is asked what's the greatest commandment and he's like, I'll tell you the greatest commandment. Oh yeah, right. And then he actually gives two. Yeah. But he calls it the greatest commandment. Yeah, that's right. And the two are love God with all your heart, soul, mind, strength, and love your neighbor as yourself.

That's right. But he doesn't think of them as separate. He calls them the great commandment. Yes. Yeah, there are two commands that are the greatest commandment. Relate in a right way with your neighbor and relate in a right way with God. Yeah.

And actually actually those two are the same thing. Yeah. In doing one, you are also doing the other. So in that sense, Patrick, the three-way righteousness of how I relate to people, how I relate to God, how I relate to creation, we can tease them out and they are distinct from one point of view but also I think Jesus takes for granted that from another point of view they are so closely bound together they're not really different at all which is why he can fluidly move back and forth between teachings on how you relate to people and teachings on how you relate to God because they're really aspects of one thing.

And that's true of how righteousness is used in the Hebrew Bible as well. So how you do right by God is doing right by others. Even back in the Abraham story, which we talked about in the episode, that very episode, is that Abraham does right by God when he trusts in God's promise that he will have a big family. Yeah, which is a relational thing with God. That's right. And then in the very next story, when he and Sarah don't trust God to provide them a child, they hurt someone.

They end up hurting their Egyptian slave, abusing her. And so that breakdown of their relationship with Hagar, their slave, is intimately bound up with a breakdown in their trust in God. And trusting in God would have maintained right relationship with Hagar. And so that's a good example of how they're bound together. So this is a point and I'm glad you raised the point, Patrick, and asked the questions because this will underlie the logic of so many more things in the Sermon on the Mount. All right, let's hear a question from Tetsa in Nigeria.

Hello Bible Project team. I'm Tetsa from Nigeria. My question is about the meek. What does the Bible mean when it also describes Moses as meek in Numbers 12 verse 3? Is it the same as what Jesus talks about in the Sermon and the Mount? Thank you for all you guys do. So Moses is described as meek. Yeah. So one common English translation of one of the good life sayings is, How good is life for the meek? And if I remember correctly, this is that we were tracing the Hebrew word onni. Onni, yes, tracing the Hebrew word on me. On me, yes.

Is the Hebrew word underneath? It's the Greek word, which is the consistent way that Greek speaking Jews translated the Hebrew word on me. If I remember, on me, kind of most literally is someone on the margins. Someone on the social margins who is currently experiencing a low rank in their community, a low social rank. But then I remember that you, we talked about how David was sometimes referred to as,

he referred to himself that way when he was out on the run. That's right. But he still was king. He still had to like a lot of social rank, but he wasn't experiencing it. Yeah, king in exile. In right. But he still was king. Yeah. He still had to like a lot of social rank, but he wasn't experiencing it. Yeah, king in exile. In exile. In exile.

Yeah. So he'd call himself Ani. That's right. Yeah. So one way to think about it is, if you're on the margins, whether temporarily or just as a permanent state of your life, it's talking about I don't have access to

people or circles or institutions of influence where my thoughts or my ideas would even matter to change anything. So one way to think about that is about importance. People who are important are held in esteem and what you say and think matters to them and then matters what happens. And to be unimportant then is to be opposite of that. And Moses was a pretty important guy. He was a super important guy, but there's one story where he's called the most onee

man in all the land. And it's a story in Numbers chapter 12 when his brother and sister speak against Moses because remember he married a non-Israeli woman. Midianite. Yeah, or here called Kushite. And whether this Kushite woman is another way of saying a Midianite woman or whether it's talking about a second wife, although it's never, there's never explicitly a story about him marrying a second woman. But most likely it's a way another subtribal name or title for Midianites. His wife, T'. It's poor either way he married the non-Israelite and

Miriam and Aaron his brother and sister take issue with that and they say Has Yahweh only spoken through Moses Hasn't he spoken through us too? Are we important to yeah, right? Yeah, so actually what they're saying is like Why are you talking? Why is Moses so important? Like we're his brother and sister. Yeah, we're older. They're both older than yeah, cuz Mary Miriam Was there by the Bank of the Nile when he got put in and we learned later that Aaron's his older brother So their little brother

is now the most important guy in the whole tribe. You can kind of see where this comes from. We remember your dirty diapers, Moses. Yeah. So then the narrator comes along and says, okay, dear reader, you should know, Moses was very on the, in fact, more than any Adam, any human who was on the face of the land. So Moses wasn't the kind of guy who walked around acting like he was the most important person. And so much so that the brother and sister take advantage of that.

And they're just like, yeah, he's just our brother. What's so important about this guy? And then this was translated in the NIV here as, no, this is NASB as humble. Yeah. So NASB as Moses was very humble, new American standard, Moses was very meek. So in a literal sense, it is someone unimportant, but then it can be described as someone who has a Disposition in which they aren't trying to impress people with their importance. That's right. Which we would call humility Yes, and what humility is is you truly believe and you act like you're not the most important person okay, and

And that's but sometimes you really are an important person But you believe that you're not yeah, you believe everyone else is just as important and then you act like an unimportant person So that's one but then on me and the Greek word pros Can also describe and more often describe can also describe and more often describe people who actually are unimportant in their social setting. And that's what Jesus was referring to. That's what Jesus is referring to. However, this is back to, I think, Sophia and Talia's question.

So what if you are a follower of Jesus and you're important to the people around you? How vital is it then to recognize? Do you give up that seat on the board you're on or the position of power? Yeah, maybe sometimes it means intentionally not exerting your influence. It might mean that. It might mean if you, to the best of your wisdom you and your community

Dissern that you really should take up a leadership or influential role But what if you exercise that role? From a deep conviction and mindset that you are not the most important person. Yeah, and I Will follow a leader like that to the end of the earth. His name's Jesus. He's the most important person in the cosmos. And he did neck like it.

So he's the ultimate on the one. So sometimes people are on knee to the people around them. We call them on the margins. And sometimes people are on knee in their mindset. We call that humility. We call that humility, but it's the same word in Greek and Hebrew. Okay. And we're really becoming like Greek and Hebrew like word smiths here.

Yeah. Yeah. So thank you, Taitsa. That's a really good question. So in that moment, it shows you that Moses didn't act like he was important, which gave his brother and sister opportunity to challenge his role of influence. And so in that moment also, he is being on the... He's being treated as unimportant. So kind of both are happening to him, both layers,

which is similar to David, who was the king, but he was treated by his son Absalom as a rabble. And so, he's kind of both at once. It strikes me, I think I've, someone's pointed this out, Moses is credited with writing the Torah, which means he would have written a line. He's the most humble person on the planet. Yeah, it's kind of a funny line if you think that Moses has to have written every word. Yeah.

Okay. Yep. How about one last question, a very practical question from Dominic in California. Hi, I'm Dominic Zarecki from Irvine, California. Hi, I'm Dominic Zurecki from Irvine, California. Jonathan Pennington, a scholar and guest on your podcast, says that Jesus' sermon is meant to be memorized. Are there techniques early Christians used that could help us today remember and reflect on the sermon? Yeah, this is something we've advocated and encouraged y'all listening to consider memorizing the sermon on the mount? Yeah, you know what? I have not memorized it, but one thing I've noticed going

through it and really thinking about the structure, which isn't something we really get to do a lot in the podcast, but we do have a series of videos that are out on YouTube that goes to the structure of the sermon and what I've noticed is by really memorizing the structure It helps me just remember the whole the order of everything. Yeah. Yeah, and that's a really good first step Yeah, to then Beginning to memorize the yeah, and it's a simple structure. It is in a way Well, okay, so to your question Domin you said, are there techniques early Christians used?

I think one thing to draw, what you're drawing attention to, John, is that Jesus used a number of techniques and then Matthew picked up Jesus' teachings and he used a number of techniques in composing and designing this teaching to optimize it for memory. So the speech is actually already designed for ideal memory retention if you understand its literary shape because it's three parts. Each of those three parts have three parts and within them each of those three parts have three parts. And often those three parts have then within them each of those three parts have three parts and often those three parts have little triads have little triads but as you begin to memorize

them if you just straight up begin rote memorization you will begin to feel the cadence of one two three one two three one two three and what you'll see is that the flow of thought actually works like that. One, two, three. One, two, three. One, two, three. It's a waltz. And it'll be a closure.

And so the thing is actually designed in terms of words, cadence, and flow of thought to work in these triadic shapes. And it just turns out that the way human memory, short-term memory retention works is when we can memorize things in bundles and then in bundles of bundles, kind of like phone numbers. There's something about the seven digits that once you, if you add an eight and a ninth, it mentally changes the game.

But something about memorizing three numbers. Plus four numbers. Plus four numbers. Or now it's like area codes. Yeah. Three numbers plus three numbers plus four numbers. Three plus three plus three plus one. That's like standard phone number shape.

And that's often three plus three plus three or often biblical authors and sometimes in the third will be a three plus three plus three plus one. That's the plagues. Three plus three plus three plus one. That's authors and sometimes in the sermon will be a three plus three plus three plus one. That's the plagues, three plus three plus three plus one. That's the shape of the ten plagues. Exactly. So Dominic, the one thing's already been done for you. Like the sermon's already been optimized for memory retention. In terms of other techniques, reciting out loud, a biblical like poem or in this case the sermon, reciting

it out loud regularly, which is something that Paul the Apostle recommends that Timothy dedicate yourself to the public reading of scripture. That was the technique. So, but reading it aloud to yourself, reading it aloud in your community on a regular basis. Really, just if you start to read it out loud to yourself regularly, it won't be long before you won't have to look at the page for every word. You'll start, it's sticky. And so, yeah, maybe, I don't know, try three months of just reading it out loud every evening or every morning or both and see what happens.

And then start closing your eyes. And just see what happens. Cool. Yeah. Well, we're gonna continue to do Q and R's throughout the year. They're gonna come out later talking about episodes further down the line. So if you're listening along live,

you're gonna notice these questions are responding to kind of older episodes. Oh, or earlier in the series. Earlier in the series. So we'll do another one and we'll try to catch back up. And we'll do, I think we have four or five of these throughout the year. So this is the first.

Yeah, yeah, we love hearing from y'all and your questions, such good questions. Yeah, thank you everyone. Thank you for sending them in. We're glad that walking through the sermon slowly is so helpful. It's certainly been a huge impact on us as we've done it. I mean, we've been thinking and working

in this for a couple of years now. And it has been such a gift to focus on this. So we hope it is for you too. Yeah. Bible Project is a nonprofit. And we exist to experience the Bible as a unified story that leads to Jesus. Everything that we get to make, it's all free because you're all paying for it. So we're just keeping it free. Yeah. That's the plan. Yep. Thank you for your generosity.

Thank you for your enthusiasm for this and we're glad that it's helpful for you. It has been transformative for us too. So let's keep going onward and upward. Hi, this is Ellie and I'm from Los Angeles, California. Hi, Yala, this is Steve from the BRE from South Africa. I first heard about the Bible Project through their podcasts. I first heard about the Bible Project from my good friend Maxine when I first became a Christian and visited her dorm room and saw a Bible project posted on Romans. I used the Bible project for finding truth in my very

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of the Bible. Our Holy Bible is a unique storyfunded project by people like me. Find free videos, study notes, podcasts, classes, and more at Bibleproject.com. Hi, this is Cooper here to read the credits. John Collins is the creative producer for today's show. Production of today's episode is by producer Lindsey Ponder, managing producer Cooper Peltz, producer Colin Wilson, Stephanie Tam is our consultant and editor,

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